A career based in compassion – from the trauma of the Boston Bombing to reconstructive
procedures in Jupiter, one local doctor
doesn’t just practice “plastic surgery,” he
specializes in “Surgeries for the Soul.”
“In April of 2013, I was finishing
up as a clinical instructor at Boston
University Medical Center, specializing
in otolaryngology and facial plastic
surgery. On the day of the Boston
Marathon, we were following the news
as we went about our rounds. Suddenly,
we were in the midst of a trauma
situation and I was on call at Boston
Medical Center.”
In his Jupiter office at Mardirossian
Facial Aesthetics, Dr. Vartan
Mardirossian, M.D., F.A.C.S. is a long
way from that fateful day when terror
erupted during the Boston Marathon. It
remains, however, as a defining moment
in a career combining compassion and
cutting-edge techniques.

A graduate of the University of Padua’s
School of Medicine and a Research
Fellow in head and neck cancer at
Boston’s MIT, Madirossian has clinical
interests in head and neck plastic
surgery, facial plastic surgery, facial
injuries, Mohs surgery reconstructions,
rhinoplasty, face- and neck-lifts,
eye and midface rejuvenations, and
minimally invasive techniques for facial
rejuvenation. On that terrible day in
April, he was finishing his fellowship in
Boston, lecturing at Boston University
Medical Center and working at Boston
Medical Center.

As Dr. Mardirossian sets the scene,
he recounts that Boston Medical
Center is not unfamiliar with violence.

The doctors and nurses there treat
gunshot victims and those suffering
from violent trauma on a routine basis.

But on April 15, 2013, as homemade
bombs detonated, spewing nails, bolts,
and twisted metal into the Marathon-watching crowd, the “regular” violence
escalated. The “normal” trauma
suddenly more closely resembled actual
battlefield wounds and amputations,
and every available doctor in the area
was called into action.

FATHER AND SON AT THE FINISH LINE

“A father and son were running therace together. The young man hadjust finished and had returned to thefinish line to wait for his father tocomplete the race,” Dr. Mardirossiansays. “Suddenly, the bomb went off andhe was hit. The father ran up momentslater. He saw his wounded son. Hepicked him up in his arms and ran off,literally carrying him to the emergencyroom at Boston Medical Center. Henever stopped running.”Dr. Mardirossian was called in to helpwith this case because his specialty ishead and neck surgery and, in additionto wounds in his temple, the youngman’s ear was severely damaged. “Ientered the operating room and aneurosurgical team was addressing thewounds in his temple. I was able toreattach his ear. When he woke up, hewas so happy to be alive that he startedcrying. But that’s when we noticed thathis forehead was not moving,” says Dr.

Mardirossian recalling the moment he
realized that this case was not quite
what it had seemed. “So I ran the
tests to determine if the nerves were
traumatized or if they had been cut.

If they were traumatized, they would
eventually come back to life – like when
your foot falls asleep. If they were cut,
we had 72 hours to fix them before they
died and could not be repaired.”
The tests proved that the injury was the
worst-case scenario. The nerves in the
young man’s forehead had indeed been
severed. This meant that the clock was
ticking.

“When I told my colleagues on staff
that I had discovered that my patient
had a transection of the facial nerve,
and that I proposed reattaching the
nerve ends, there was opposition. One
of the main Chairmen on staff said,